363-0503-00L Principles of Microeconomics
| Semester | Autumn Semester 2019 |
| Lecturers | M. Filippini |
| Periodicity | yearly recurring course |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Comment | GESS (Science in Perspective): This lecture is for MSc students only. BSc students register for 363-1109-00L Einführung in die Mikroökonomie. |
Courses
| Number | Title | Hours | Lecturers | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 363-0503-00 G | Principles of Microeconomics | 2 hrs |
| M. Filippini |
Catalogue data
| Abstract | The course introduces basic principles, problems and approaches of microeconomics. This provides the students with reflective and contextual knowledge on how societies use scarce resources to produce goods and services and ensure a (fair) distribution. |
| Objective | The learning objectives of the course are: (1) Students must be able to discuss basic principles, problems and approaches in microeconomics. (2) Students can analyse and explain simple economic principles in a market using supply and demand graphs. (3) Students can contrast different market structures and describe firm and consumer behaviour. (4) Students can identify market failures such as externalities related to market activities and illustrate how these affect the economy as a whole. (5) Students can also recognize behavioural failures within a market and discuss basic concepts related to behavioural economics. (6) Students can apply simple mathematical concepts on economic problems. |
| Content | The resources on our planet are finite. The discipline of microeconomics therefore deals with the question of how society can use scarce resources to produce goods and services and ensure a (fair) distribution. In particular, microeconomics deals with the behaviour of consumers and firms in different market forms. Economic considerations and discussions are not part of classical engineering and science study programme. Thus, the goal of the lecture "Principles of Microeconomics" is to teach students how economic thinking and argumentation works. The course should help the students to look at the contents of their own studies from a different perspective and to be able to critically reflect on economic problems discussed in the society. Topics covered by the course are: - Supply and demand - Consumer demand: neoclassical and behavioural perspective - Cost of production: neoclassical and behavioural perspective - Welfare economics, deadweight losses - Governmental policies - Market failures, common resources and public goods - Public sector, tax system - Market forms (competitive, monopolistic, monopolistic competitive, oligopolistic) - International trade |
| Lecture notes | Lecture notes, exercises and reference material can be downloaded from Moodle. |
| Literature | N. Gregory Mankiw and Mark P. Taylor (2017), "Economics", 4th edition, South-Western Cengage Learning. The book can also be used for the course 'Principles of Macroeconomics' (Sturm) For students taking only the course 'Principles of Microeconomics' there is a shorter version of the same book: N. Gregory Mankiw and Mark P. Taylor (2017), "Microeconomics", 4th edition, South-Western Cengage Learning. Complementary: R. Pindyck and D. Rubinfeld (2018), "Microeconomics", 9th edition, Pearson Education. |
| Prerequisites / Notice | GESS (Science in Perspective): This lecture is for MSc students only. BSc students register for 363-1109-00L Einführung in die Mikroökonomie. |
Performance assessment
| Performance assessment information (valid until the course unit is held again) | |
Performance assessment as a semester course | |
| ECTS credits | 3 credits |
| Examiners | M. Filippini |
| Type | end-of-semester examination |
| Language of examination | English |
| Repetition | A repetition date will be offered in the first two weeks of the semester immediately consecutive. |
| Additional information on mode of examination | Written computer-based exam of 90 minutes Aids: Only a non-electronic dictionary is allowed. |
| Online examination | The examination may take place on the computer. |
Learning materials
| No public learning materials available. | |
| Only public learning materials are listed. |
Groups
| No information on groups available. |
Restrictions
| There are no additional restrictions for the registration. |
